


An Instruction Manual for the End of the World

by facingthenorthwind (spacegandalf)



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: M/M, The Fall - Freeform, on the road
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2013-11-06
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacegandalf/pseuds/facingthenorthwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you first see the news reports, believe them. It is not April Fools’ Day. It is not Halloween. There is nothing printed in the small square on your calendar that represents these twenty-four hours. The priest opening mass two blocks away as you watch television is wearing green vestments for Ordinary Time. So when you see the news reports, believe them, and leave. You will not get another chance. This is not a drill.</p>
<p>[involves graphic descriptions of wounds.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Instruction Manual for the End of the World

01\. When you first see the news reports, believe them. It is not April Fools’ Day. It is not Halloween. There is nothing printed in the small square on your calendar that represents these twenty-four hours. The priest opening mass two blocks away as you watch television is wearing green vestments for Ordinary Time. So when you see the news reports, believe them, and leave. You will not get another chance. This is not a drill.

02\. Imagine there are things that want to kill you. You’ve never been in this position before; food journalists for Canadian newspapers don’t often get death threats. There are things that want to kill you, and they are everywhere. The woman who served you coffee yesterday. The man with the violin you gave two quid to when you last caught the tube. The entire fourth form class you saw making rockets in the park last week. They are not people who want to kill you, they are things, because you can’t reconcile the word ‘human’ and the grey, rotting flesh that drags itself towards you whenever you go outside. Now stop using your imagination, because you don’t have to imagine it. It is real, and you are living it, and you have to keep moving. Take a car, the keys still left in the ignition by someone with more pressing things to do (consuming human flesh, perhaps), and hope it has a full tank. Drive as far away from civilisation as you can, and imagine there are things that want to kill you. Now stop imagining.

03\. When the warning light next to the fuel gauge comes on, check that you have a weapon. If you don’t, pick one up — a bat of some sort or a piece of pipe if you can get it. Do not choose a gun. Do not look over your shoulder to see the trail of monsters you have picked up. It will make no difference. You have object permanence; when you look away, they will still be there. So don’t look. When the car stutters to a stop, do not try to restart it. Run. Climb a tree and hope the monsters cannot follow you.

When they finally wander off, do not cry.

04\. Climb down from your leafy sanctuary with shaking limbs. When you see you are in the middle of nowhere, without a single landmark, swear in every language you know under your breath. It will not help, but it will make you feel a little better. Pick a direction (pick the one that seems the opposite direction to the moaning; pretend you do not know that there is no opposite direction to the moaning) and start out, clutching your weapon tightly. Do not think about the people you know. Do not imagine where they are. Do not, under any circumstances, wonder if they are safe. Stop thinking. Just keep walking, and when you stumble over a body in the woods, do not destroy the head. Instead, say the first thing that comes to mind and take his hand.

05\. There is every reason for you not to get attached. Do not get attached. There is no certainty anymore; you cannot afford to be sentimental. _Do not get attached_. When you get attached anyway, pretend the heat of his body is only comforting because you cannot risk lighting a fire. When he offers you an earphone and turns on Tom Waits, tell yourself you would still be able to bash his head in with your weapon if he lurched towards you. Lie. It will not help, but it will make you feel a little better.

06\. The first time he kisses you, kiss him back, but not too hard. Tell yourself you have not been imagining this for weeks. Tell yourself you could still bash his head in. Run your fingers through his hair, tugging slightly to make him gasp. Do not attempt to count his freckles. Taste salt and fear and possibility on his skin as you find yourself at the end of the world. Allow yourself to hope. It will not help, but it will make you feel a little better. Open up at last: talk about your job, your favourite food, whether Mario or Kirby would win in a fight. When he mentions his sister, say nothing. Do not mention your family. Kiss him instead, and lose yourself in the contours of his body. He is merely a distraction until…until. Do not think about ‘until’.

07\. When your travelling companion turns grey from a dirty garden fork, bash his head in yourself to prove you still can. Do not imagine him with red hair or a round nose or freckles you can use to trace constellations. Discuss whether you should dig him a grave; when the horde shambles closer, take a handful of dirt and sprinkle it over him like you remember from the Greek tragedies. Mumble a few words, because you aren’t religious but it feels wrong not to. Dream of him every night for a week and wake up feeling like you have been buried alive.

08\. Meet up with new travelling companions. Do not see the old companion’s face whenever you look at them. Pretend you can stand them, and when one of them makes himself sick on pink and white marshmallows, laugh until you cry. For a moment, forget the moaning on the wind and laugh. It will help.

09\. Realise your luck will run out eventually. Do not consider it as you cling to your partner, burying your face in his collarbone and concentrating on the rise and fall of his chest instead of the sounds on the wind. Do not consider it, but do not be surprised when it does. Do not realise you are backing towards a ditch as you face a horde of nuns, their rosary beads clicking together as they stumble towards you, occasionally tripping on their own habits. No, do realise it — too late. Hear the crack of bone snapping before you feel the pain. Stay conscious for long enough to know you are about to die. Black out.

10\. When you come to, try to move your leg before you remember how it hit a rock at the end of the fall. Almost black out again from the wave of pain but resist. Wonder why you cannot hear moans. (Were the nuns moaning in Latin or was that your imagination?  _Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis_. No, definitely too complicated for zombie tongues.) Wonder why you are not dead. As your hearing returns, turn your head to see your partner’s face, tearstreaked and terrified. He is saying something. Listen. _Eugene, Eugene, can you stand up? There’s — fuck — there’s blood all down your leg._  Shake your head. Ask where the nuns are. _It doesn’t matter, don’t worry, Eugene, we need to get you somewhere safer._  Ask for the pistol in his backpack, tell him to empty it except for a single bullet. Tell him you’ll do it yourself. Fail to find the strength to shout at him when he refuses.

11\. Do not remember the next forty-eight hours. Try, but find it’s hazy and all you know is that you keep moving, leaning heavily on your partner and praying you do not meet any zombies. When you do, watch helplessly as the rust red (blood red) cricket bat does all the work. Collapse at last in a deserted farmhouse, the stench of manure and mould blanketing the ground. Close your eyes so you do not have to see your partner weep. When he finally suggests trying to set the bone somehow, watch him tear his shirt into strips and then vomit when he tries to straighten the bone. It will not help: you will lose the leg anyway.

12\. Ask your partner again for the pistol when pus oozes from the wound in your leg and you run out of clothes to use for bandages. Reason with him. You will not get anywhere; dying because he is too sentimental to let you go is not romantic, it is a waste. Every time your body shakes with a sob your leg hurts more, and eventually all you can do is fall asleep. Dream of your partner drowning in foul-smelling pus, blood pouring from his mouth and his last words unintelligible. Wake drenched in sweat to see him still alive, dark bruises underneath his eyes.

13\. Give up just as your salvation arrives. Collapse as your partner’s voice shouts your name, his voice cracking on the second syllable. Wake up in a tent, surrounded by people you have never seen before. You are lying on a sheet on the ground and there is a rock digging into your back. Feel the bile rise at the back of your throat as you do not see the familiar face you want, the one constant since this nightmare began. Do not wonder why your leg hurts less now.

14\. The doctor is soft when she tells you — her voice is soft, her face is soft, her hands are soft. Your partner sits next to you, holding your hand. You don’t have the strength to look, but you know from his face it is true. Do not wonder about what purpose you can serve in the new world, since there are no prosthetics now. Do not think about how much morphine you must be on right now. Do not think about what will happen when it runs out. Do not think. It will not help, but it will make you feel a little better.

15\. The future is difficult, but when you get out of the hospital and reach the tent designated as ‘yours’ (fall only three times on the way there, scraping your knee on the concrete), sit on your sleeping bag and breathe. You are safe now. You have survived. Breathe. It will help.


End file.
